Every time I hear that we’re in post-racial America because we have a black President, I giggle a little. That’s exactly what they said about Hootie and the Blowfish.
So along comes Norm Hughes, a Michigan member of the Tea Party. Ole Norm gives a speech at Americans for Only Koch Brothers Prosperity about charter schools. He explains things in code-speak for his audience.
Kids aren’t going to charter schools if they’re “A” students. They go to charter schools because they’re failing students and, by and large, the charter schools have a higher percentage of poor families, ethnically challenged families…
Ethnically challenged? What the hell is that? Why doesn’t he just say the N word? That’s what he wants to say.
Fifty five years ago, when my Grandmother was speaking of black people, she would whisper it. She would say, “Mr. Riley who works at the church is the nicest man. He told me this morning that his son has the chicken pox.” Then she would lean-in, very ladylike and whisper, “He’s colored,” as if that made not a damn’s worth of difference except to mention. Back to normal voice, “I don’t know what we’d do without him. He is so nice.”
That was fifty five years ago. And if you lived in the South, you know darn well that your grandmother did that, too.
Ethnically challenged?
And then on the other end, comes this from White Whine, one of my favorite places to laugh.
Yeah, the whole month of February.
You wanna know when White History month is, you know, where white people can act superior? January, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December. Write that down somewhere, Honey.
